"What about our money?" said Butler.
The Spaniard looked round him on Mariana rendering this, then said, "I will give drafts upon my bank at Madrid."
Butler, who was clearly the sea lawyer of this little community, fastening his eyes upon the rings on Don Lazarillo's fingers, shook his head with a contemptuous snort of laughter. "No, no," cried he, "I know what drafts be. A draft's a check, and a check's a bit of paper as may be made not worth the ink it's wrote upon with by the party withdrawing of his money from the bank. No, no," he continued, shaking his head somewhat savagely at Don Lazarillo, "we want money, not paper, and if ye can't pay us in money, then ye've got to settle with us in what is next best to it." And here he looked significantly at the Don's rings again.
"You may tell Don Lazarillo," said I to Mariana, "that we shall not be satisfied with his drafts, nor with anything short of the cash he may have about him; and what he may lack in cash he must make good in jewelry, of which he and his dead friend have plenty between them."
When this was interpreted, an expression like a spasm passed over Don Lazarillo's face. He reflected, then, with a passionate gesture, whipped out a pocket-book, from which he abstracted a handsome gold pencil-case, and all very passionately, with knitted brows and muttering lips, he entered certain figures, then shrieked rather than pronounced the amount to the cook, naming it in Spanish currency. Mariana nodded. Don Lazarillo now addressed him with excitement, then, springing to his feet, he entered Don Christoval's room, from which, in a few minutes, he returned bearing with him a bag of yellow leather, and the silk pocket-handkerchief which, as he had given me to understand, contained his deceased friend's jewelry. He opened the bag with trembling fingers, and then, with glowing eyes, he capsized the contents on to the table. This consisted of English sovereigns—two or three hundred, I should have imagined.
"Count," shrieked the Spaniard, "and divide."
I counted, and made the sum exactly a hundred and fifty pounds.
"Divide," yelled Don Lazarillo, and he added some terms in Spanish which Mariana did not think proper to interpret. The cook's eyes gleamed like the blade of a new poniard as he looked at the money. I told thirty pounds for each man; for this, it seems, was the wages agreed upon for the run. Don Lazarillo then thrust the little parcel of jewelry which had belonged to his friend across to me.
"Dat veel pay you, I hope, Capitan Portlack," he exclaimed, hooking his thumbs in the arms of his waistcoat, and leaning back with an assumption of haughtiness and contempt, which fitted him as ill as the clothes of Don Christoval would.